1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus and image forming method using a decolorizing toner.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, information is typically printed on paper and thus confirmed by the use of an image forming apparatus such as a copier, printer, facsimile, or multi-function peripheral (MFP) that integrates these. Because of the increase in the volume of information, the quantity of paper used has been increasing.
However, most of those printed documents contain records that are not required to be saved and are temporary. Therefore, these documents are disposed of in a short period. Meanwhile, as the awareness of the environment has increased such as conservation of forest resources as the material of paper and reduction in CO2 emission, using the back side of printed paper, double-side printing, using recycled paper and so on are common practices. Moreover, in order to enable repeated use of paper, techniques of mechanically or chemically stripping a toner from paper, and techniques of using a decolorizing toner that performs decolorization by heat, light or chemicals, for printing, have been known.
Printed documents using a decolorizing toner contain records that are not required to be saved for a long time and are temporary. These documents are not suitable for long-term saving. Therefore, a user who cares about environmental protection must use both an image forming apparatus that uses a decolorizing toner and an image forming apparatus that uses an ordinary non-decolorizing toner, and therefore the cost to purchase the two image forming apparatuses arises, and the place where the two image forming apparatuses can be installed, is required and so on.